Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Upgrades to Version 1.3: New Game + and New Blades IncludedNo. The drop rates for blades have not increased. KOS-MOS demands your time.03.03.18 - 6:44 PM

A new update recently came out for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which adds some nice goodies for players; specifically, the addition of New Game +, which allows players who finished the game to restart it with new features.

Below is official info from the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 website.

Elements carried over to New Game Plus:

Driver levels

Driver and Blade equipment and Affinity Charts

Awakened Blades

Acquired items and gold

Town development status and Merc Group level

Status of Events Theater and defeated unique monsters

Play time

New features added to New Game Plus:

Certain Blades from Torna will be able to join your party.

All Blades can be dispatched on Merc Missions.

Driver Hidden Affinities have been unlocked. New skills can also be learned.

Zeke's "Eye of Shining Justice" has been unlocked. (The skill can be learned by developing Zeke's Hidden Affinities.)

Drivers' levels can now be decreased at inns, with a corresponding amount of Bonus EXP granted for the number of levels decreased.

Traveling Bards have been added to various locations. They will exchange Bonus EXP for special items, including one that will increase the number of accessories a Driver can equip. Traveling Bards will be displayed on the mini map as green shop icons.

Things to note in New Game Plus:

Quests, Heart-to-Hearts, and Skip Travel points will all be reset.

Cleared Merc Missions will be reset.

Saving after beginning a New Game Plus playthrough will overwrite the save data in which you initially cleared the game.

Torna members like Akhos and Mikhail will be available with this update. Some of them can only be grabbed via core crystal (Akhos) and others need to be found somewhere in the world (Mikhail). Both of them are only available in New Game +.

Also included in the new update is a new easy mode and quality of life options like skipping the blade summoning animation or locking blades, so they can't be deleted.